Broken Biscuit
by balita
Summary: What if the conversation on the roof had been resolved, on the roof. "Luke is so messy and untidy, and all Noah wants to do is fold him in, you know, neaten his edges."


**Broken Biscuit**

_I_'_m standing on the edge of your words_

_That is where you_'_ll find me_

_I_'_m paralyzed by all the things that hurt_

_But I_'_m coming_

Sia – Broken Biscuit

He realizes that it is Luke's chaos, how _unarranged_ he is, that attracts him. Luke is so messy and untidy, and all Noah wants to do is fold him in, you know, neaten his edges. Not out of wanting to change Luke, oh god no, him with those blurry brown eyes that careen so magnificently, it's hard not to love him more for stumbling and chuckling at himself when he does it. This need of Noah's purely compulsive, a habit he fears is a little hereditary, a little too much like his father that even when he's sure Luke's about to trip, to clatter and fall into all the wrong places he pulls back and let's it happen. He's terrified of wanting to change this person he loves so he pulls then pushes, all the while knowing he will be firmly grounded in the aftermath.

The unsteadiness of it all is what scares Luke the most, addicted to Noah's surety, only to be surprised again when he leaves. Loving how tempered and even, how incredibly stable – all back muscle and steady footing – Noah is until it becomes unfocused and all of their tugging is lost in the easy closure of that snapping door. The punctuation to Noah's measured shuffling, speeding away. Always away, and out, and much too far, for Luke's liking, so he baits this man he loves, coaxing him to stay a little longer. Not like coercion ever worked well on Noah Mayer, gullible and trusting though he may be, he'd rather run and arrange it all in his head away from Luke's pleading, while Luke just wanted him to wade through it. _With him_. With him right here, so that he didn't feel so precarious, yearning for Noah's open sturdy spaces, the only place that he never lost his footing.

But that isn't how it works with the two of them. Luke's never neat —always running towards change that one— and Noah's so careful that he could never be messy —consistently inconsistent, so that things don't change, so even in their clichéd attraction of differences they're ruining each other. At least that's what it feels like.

And for once Noah is unguarded enough to say this.

Stunned more at Noah's even tone, Luke trips over his prepared challenge, "Look Noah, I know neither of us know exactly how to do this. But I just never know if you want me to stay or go. I just — no I need to know what you want, because I'm pretty damn dizzy, and I just need to be sure about us. About whether you want me."

"I do want you. I just think we need—"

"What Noah? Time? Another fucking break? I'm sorry, so incredibly sorry. You know this, and it seems so stupid of me to be jealous of Maddie. But I was, because with her you didn't care if you were sure, you wanted to dive right in anyway."

"Luke you _know_ that Maddie was me just being terrified of us. And see that, that right there is why I think we need time to ourselves to fix the people we are, because Luke, this isn't entirely my fault."

"I'm not saying that it is. But Noah, if you ever loved me you'd be willing to go through this with us _together_. That's what love means, we're going to ride out all this rough shit together, because doing it alone well, it sucks. It sucks and it's really easy to lose yourself."

It sounds so _easy_, yet with Luke, Noah knows almost everything attached to those lips is a challenge. Possibly because it hurts more, nothing with this burgeoning man simple or guided. Not because of his gender, that he was so over with, but things with Luke just seemed to _happen_. There was no steering involved, compass and sextant hopelessly discarded along the way, since his first time wearing that Windsor tie, and he found himself needing that little blonde whirlwind. "This would be so much easier if I could remove that image from my head. But I can't, and guess what Luke, it hurts. I'm not being stubborn, it just hurts. And I don't know what to do with that now except having a little time to try to get over it, and hope that you realize that you are responsible for you. Not me. If you're feeling insecure, then why didn't you just come and talk to me?"

"Because you left. Again. And it also hurts chasing something you're not sure of. It's tiring Noah. Brian was so easy; I just had to show up. And no matter how selfish that makes me, it's all I ever wanted from you. Knowing that if I was there, that alone could make you happy."

"Maddie and I are just friends Luke, you know that."

"But you're always leaving!"

"Yet I'm the one that didn't cheat. You did. So while I realize that you know you made a mistake, how do I know you won't do it again _and then blame me for it afterwards_? God Luke, when are you going to grow up? Take some responsibility for yourself, _please_."

Reassurance, and his fucking durability, is all Luke is looking for. Craves it more than the bone-rattling influx, the intense sloping of uncertainty, that swirling feeling he gets when he doesn't know whether things have bottomed out or if it's just the sky tearing itself wide and greeting him. He just wants to be solidified by Noah, and it's something that feels so elevated from his haphazard existence that he'll just keep running right into it. Nearly clinging, because it feels so damn pure, so much Noah and so little of him that he wants to stay put and languish in it. Luke Snyder was never one for staying put, much too driven and childlike to remain enclosed. Forever cart-wheeling out, all extended tiptoes and scraped knee caps, to be captured by permanence. Sure he was dependable, but he never wanted to reign himself in and stay put until Noah. Noah was so resolute, and god it was endearing.

"Why is it that you can't see that, growing up, is what I've been trying to do for the past twenty minutes?" It wasn't a question, not a question at all, just a simple underscoring to the disappointment crowning this...whatever it was. Unsure about who it was for, but there it was making him awkward and breathless. "We had just gotten back together, so despite everything that happened before that, we were still...new. And seeing you with Maddie, it reminded me of how fragile we were, how every single time things get hard, and I need you, you're gone."

"I'm here now aren't I?"

"Yeah but I don't what for; you still can't forgive me."

"Luke it's not that I don't want to. It's just..."

"You're scared?"

"And so are you. That's why we're not good at this, both of us are running." There's that face, wide-eyed indignation, more hazel than brown now, naturally flickering gauging the truth of Noah's statement. _Everything_ about Luke undulates. "You are. I'm always leaving so I don't have to see you do it, and you—"

"Screw everything up before someone else can, before you find out your better off without me. Just so I know you care enough to try and help put us back together again."

"Jesus, Luke."

"No, Noah it's the truth. You leave, I self-destruct so that you can come back, and it's vicious and ugly, but there it is. Now we _both_ have to grow up and admit that even if we're scared, we still have to find a way to talk the fuck through things if we're going to last."

"It's only scary because I love you." Luke feels the ricochet melt through his tendons. It's the way his voice lowers when he says it, how full and absolute it sounds. His knees buckle but there's that hushed honesty that leaves him grounded.

"Still?"  
"More than you think possible. But I need you to know that for me, forgiveness is a process."

"I'm not going anywhere, Noah." As easy as it is surprising when their fingers brush, snug amongst the valleys, shocked that they were always waiting to fill each other. And Noah can feel his heart crash around the transition.


End file.
